PARIS – French oil major TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE) and UK power firm SSE are seeking to grab a 20% share of the electric vehicle (EV) fast-charging market in Britain and Ireland by launching a joint venture named Source, the companies said on Tuesday.
Source, a 50/50 partnership, will deploy and operate up to 3,000 fast-charge points in the two countries over the next five years, to be supplied with renewable energy by both parent companies.
The 150 kilowatt (kW) fast-charge stations, which use direct current as opposed to alternating current, can take a typical EV battery from empty to full in 30 minutes to an hour.
TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE) declined to give an amount of the total investment but said rates today for rolling out 3,000 fast-charge points, which use direct current electricity, was on the order of 300 million euros.
TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE) and SSE are already partners in Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm, Seagreen, while Total operates a network of 2,500 charging points in and around London and about 65,000 in continental Europe, most of which are slow-charge stations, which use alternating current.
“We have acquired a certain expertise in charging point management, construction, implementation, and client services … and SSE knows the integrated electricity grid aspect of the business well, so the partnership is very complementary,” Mathieu Solas, director of new mobility at TotalEnergies, told journalists at a briefing.
Fellow oil majors Shell (NYSE: SHEL) and BP (NYSE: BP) are also growing their EV charging business in the UK, as Britain has passed a mandate requiring new light vehicles to have zero emissions, and Scotland targets one million EVs on the road by 2030.
(Source: Reuters)
